The Alabaster Staff was a powerful and legendary ancient Untheran artifact.[1]
Description[]
The name of the Alabaster Staff was a misnomer as the artifact was actually a rod. It was made of white bone and etched with hieroglyphs of exquisite detail, whose interior were inlaid with gold. A bronze band shaped like a flowing river separated the top of the rod of the rest of its body. The top was a piece of black amber. The Alabaster Staff was incredibly light, yet it had an indefinable momentum about it that conveyed a sense of consequence.[2]
Powers[]
The Alabaster Staff had the power to command the dead, first raising them and then bending them to the will of the bearer. The Alabaster Staff was said to be powerful enough to raise whole armies of undead,[1] and it was even able to reanimate the preserved body of a demigod.[3]
History[]
According to legends, the Alabaster Staff was created circa −2600 DR[note 1] by the Untheric pantheon on their world of origin. At some point in the past, the archwizard Hodkamset created a replica of the Alabaster Staff, known as the staff of the necromancer, in hopes of securing a reputation.[1]
After the Time of Troubles, the Alabaster Staff was stolen many times by different groups, such as the Church of Tiamat, the bandits of Furifax, and the Zhentarim,[4] but it was recovered by the followers of Gilgeam led by Zimrilim in the Year of Rogue Dragons, 1373 DR, thanks to the help of a thief named Kehrsyn.[5][6] Zimrilim used the Alabaster Staff to raise the preserved body of Gilgeam in order to try to use the undead god as a puppet to rule Unther.[6][3]
With the help of the Harper agent Demok, Kehrsyn was able to steal back the Alabaster Staff from Zimrilim by exchanging it with a replica made by the Red Wizard Eileph.[7] Kehrsyn later used the Alabaster Staff to destroy the reanimated Gilgeam, with the help of the Tiamatan priestess Tiglath.[8]
Appendix[]
Notes[]
- ↑ According to Zimrilim, the Alabaster Staff was "some four thousand years old or some" by 1372 DR.
Appearances[]
Novels & Short Stories
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Edward Bolme (August 2003). The Alabaster Staff. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 16. ISBN 0-7869-2962-6.
- ↑ Edward Bolme (August 2003). The Alabaster Staff. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 9. ISBN 0-7869-2962-6.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Edward Bolme (August 2003). The Alabaster Staff. (Wizards of the Coast), p. Chapter 22. ISBN 0-7869-2962-6.
- ↑ Edward Bolme (August 2003). The Alabaster Staff. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 20. ISBN 0-7869-2962-6.
- ↑ Edward Bolme (August 2003). The Alabaster Staff. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 21. ISBN 0-7869-2962-6.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Brian R. James, Ed Greenwood (September 2007). The Grand History of the Realms. Edited by Kim Mohan, Penny Williams. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 153. ISBN 978-0-7869-4731-7.
- ↑ Edward Bolme (August 2003). The Alabaster Staff. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 23. ISBN 0-7869-2962-6.
- ↑ Edward Bolme (August 2003). The Alabaster Staff. (Wizards of the Coast), chap. 24. ISBN 0-7869-2962-6.